This is as much a guess at a character's history as it is a story, and it is the story of someone often overlooked on the Far, Far Range. It is just how I envision things until we get the full and complete truth: this is the story... of BOb.

Now, we all know that BOb is as human as a handful of pink slimes in a trench coat could ever get, which is to say not at all. But how, then, did they come to have access to the Range Exchange? How, in fact, did they learn to transmit messages (even if barely-comprehensible ones) at all? Dig just a little deeper into the history of the Far, Far Range, and you'll begin to understand.

You see, while BOb is now nothing but slimes in disguise, there was in fact once a human rancher named Bob. One of the first inhabitants of the Far, Far, Range, he was an older fellow and didn't much like people, so though he got connected to the range exchange he didn't use it much, and certainly didn't bother interacting with his fellow ranchers all that often. And why should he? He had the slimes.

Bob clearly loved his slimes very much, and like most ranchers, his first species was the ever-smiling endearing pink slimes. He didn't keep many of them, but the handful he did were given special treatment and attention, and even learned (with a great deal of very patient, very... persistent coaching, to do a few tricks, including smashing themselves at a communications array to type cute 'messages' at their rancher.

... Usually, they were pleas for food, namely chickens, because chickens are hard to catch and very tasty.

You probably see where this is going.

Now, Bob's ranch was fairly successful and extensive, so he had a lot of slimes to feed. One peculiarity about Bob's ranch, though, is that most of his slimes were largos. Because of this, he had to contain them very well, which was especially difficult because not only were they largos, they were usually tabby largos, and as such very bouncy and full of butt-wiggles. He had to keep them well-fed and happy, because while they were usually half-tabby, there was no such limitation on their other species: rock-tabbies, tangle-tabbies, even slightly-terrifying and ever-hungry hunter-tabbies.

If even one of them escaped, the risk of a Tarr outbreak was very real. So Bob worked very hard, raising chickens to feed his largos, and his favorite little pink slimes - his first slimes, the only slimes that were, in fact, not largos - followed after him. Usually they hoped to finally bounce into the chicken pens for a snack, but as this didn't happen often, most of the time they just found themselves listening. Even the most solitary of humans needs to talk to someone sometime, after all, and Bob? Bob talked to his slimes. Particularly his little companion slimes, three of which were named: Bitsy, Oddball, and Bink. Those three got the brunt of his conversation, his complaints, and spent many night while their rancher was asleep trying to figure out how to stack just right to tip themselves into one of those tasty, tasty chicken pens.

As time passed, Bob grew older, and more frail. The slimes, being slimes, didn't really understand what was going on - but they did notice when he started to use the range exchange to ask for chickens in order to feed his hungry largos. Raising so many chickens himself was becoming too hard for him, and sending a few plorts in exchange for tasty slime food was easier than having to march all the way over his ranch to tend the chicken pens. His little pink slimes watched this closely - they watched him feed plorts into the machine, type a message, and miracle of miracles, they saw tasty chickens come out.

After enough time seeing this, Bitsy, Oddball, and Bink collectively had an idea. It was difficult to resist the temptation to simply eat any spare plorts they found lying around, but they were just smart enough to know that ending up largos would ruin their plan. So carefully (and a few hops to knock one another away from a plort in case someone started forgetting their mission), they managed to feed them into the machine - but no chickens came out.

Belatedly, they realized it was not just an 'insert-plort-get-chicken' machine. It was Oddball who had a stroke of brilliance (or brilliance as slimes express it), and hurled himself at the communication array a few times, producing a message that was mostly keysmashing. But it was Bink who noticed the pictures of chickens, and in trying to bounce onto them and eat them, actually finalized the order.

And then, their gluttony was rewarded, as delicious, feathery, squawking chickens appeared.

Little did they know then that this was going to become a necessity very soon.

Bob was an older human, after all, and in an emergency there just weren't a lot of resources out on the Far, Far Range. So one morning, he simply never came out of his house. His slimes waited as long as they could stand it, but he didn't come out. He never came out.

Slimes don't have a very good understanding of life and death, but they did understand that their rancher wasn't coming out to feed them yet, and that there were a lot of hungry, meat-eating largos on the ranch who might become hungry, slime-eating Tarr if they were left to stay hungry too long. Catching chickens was too hard when it was just trying to feed themselves... but there was one option.

Bob was just going to have to keep placing chicken orders, whether he wanted to or not. And, because his slimes loved him and missed him (and hoped, in their little slimey way, that he would come out of the house soon), they didn't dare leave that ranch for the perhaps slightly-less dangerous wild.

Somewhere in their little minds, Bitsy, Oddball and Bink knew that if humans thought Bob was gone, they might do... Something. Or maybe they would just open the door of the house, and a big Tarr-Bob would be in there waiting to devour them all. The little pink slimes couldn't have that, so they became BOb, regularly using the range exchange to fetch chickens for themselves and the largos their rancher kept, given what plorts and items they could find in exchange.

So next time BOb pops up on your range exchange board, choose to give him his chikkins. There are hungry slimes counting on your business to ensure their survival!

If there's an update surrounded around bob, I'd like to access his ranch and sort of figure out his story from the clues scattered all over. Maybe we'll get to see the titular pink slimes themselves. Would be an interesting story-related update.

Hello ranchers! I am a rock slime specialist, but my Tactus (his name is Jerry) got a hold of my account. ALL HAIL OGDEN!!! he has got the BEST heart beets!!! Also Jerry is a HACKER!! He steals my plorts!Check out my channel!